Happy Birthday

Turning 67 today is one of the great bassists of the '70s punk movement: Fred Smith, the man whose powerful thrum can be heard on such classic Television recordings as Marquee Moon and Adventure albums.

Turning 68 today is one of the greatest prog-rock guitarists of all time, but don't you dare begin to think that Steve Howe isn't capable of shifting musical genres at the drop of a hat: he's got guitar skills which extend well beyond what you can hear on The Yes Album…or any of the other Yes albums, for that matter. But, of course, you already know that if you read our interview with him last month.

We can't imagine a song called “47 and Life” being a smash hit, so we're hoping that today's birthday boy ignores any instincts he may have to keep things real and just sticks with “18 and Life” instead. If he doesn't, though, you'll know it, because you'll see a sudden influx of headlines that read “Riot Begins at Sebastian Bach Concert.”

Turning 68 today is one of the greatest female country singers to emerge during the 1970s, although anyone who thinks that her musical skill set is strictly limited to country hasn't been paying nearly enough attention to Emmylou Harris.

Today, God hits the big 7-0. Oh, wait, did we say God? Sorry, we meant Eric Clapton. (That darned photograph...) But for what it's worth, Clapton is a god among guitar players, so you can understand our error.

73 years ago today, the Queen of Soul was born, and the world hasn't been the same since. (We mean this in a good way, of course. But you probably figured that.)

Over the course of her career, Aretha Franklin has seen 20 of her songs make their way to the top of the Billboard R&B Singles chart, starting with 1967's “I Never Loved a Man (The Way I Love You) and finishing - at least for the time being, anyway - with 1985's “Freeway of Love.” This is an amazing accomplishment, to be certain, but to celebrate Aretha's birthday, we decided to put together a playlist containing these songs…except they're performed by other people.

Hitting the big 8-0 today is one of the best bass players in the music business: Carol Kaye, whose list of credits is so long that we don't have a joke worthy enough to answer the question, “How long is it?” Seriously, she's done something like 10,000 sessions over the course of her career, which has been going on for more than five decades, so she'd be worthy of your admiration even if it wasn't her birthday, but since it is - and since it's such a major milestone, too - we couldn't help but pay tribute to her.

Today marks the 67th birthday of a guitarist, keyboard player, and songwriter who added as nearly as much to the early Alice Cooper sound as Vincent Furnier himself: Michael Bruce.

Born in 1948, Michael Owen Bruce had a military man for a dad, but his mother was a piano player, so it’s not hard to figure out what led Bruce to start tinkling the ivories himself, but it was – as with so many other young men in the ‘60s – the Beatles and the Stones that inspired him to pursue music to the point of becoming part of a band. In 1966, after doing time in such groups as The Trolls, The Wildflowers, and Our Gang, Bruce joined up with an outfit called The Spiders, the members of which may be familiar to you: Glen Buxton, Dennis Dunaway, Neal Smith, and the aforementioned Mr. Furnier. By 1968, The Spiders were known as Alice Cooper, and…well, you know where the story goes from there.

One of the definitive singer-songwriters of the ‘70s turns 67 years old today: James Taylor, who may not be a “sweet baby” anymore but definitely still has the same strong pipes as he did when he released his self-titled debut album on Apple Records back in 1968.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1948, James Vernon Taylor started his musical career on the cello, shifted to the guitar just before hitting his teens, and wrote his first song a few years later. By then, he’d already met a young man who’d go on to be a pretty decent guitarist himself: Danny Kortchmar, who soon teamed with Taylor to form a folk duo called Jamie & Kootch. Taylor had a rough time of it in the mid-1960s, struggling with depression to the point where he committed himself to the McLean Hospital for a short stay in 1965, but by ’66, Taylor and Kortchmar had moved to New York City, formed a band called The Flying Machine, and had a very minor hit with a track called “Brighten Your Night with My Day,” but as Taylor later said of his time in NYC in a New York Times interview, “I learned a lot about music and too much about drugs.” As a result, he opted to go solo, taking some money he’d inherited and crossing the pond to live in London, England for a time.

Turning the big 6-0 today is a man who got his start in a rockabilly band called Safety Last before joining forces with Mark Olson, Marc Perlman, and Norm Rogers to form a four-piece called the Jayhawks: Gary Louris.

Although he was born in Toledo, Ohio, it was in Minneapolis, Minnesota where Louris found his fellow Jayhawks: the band came together in 1985, and they released their self-titled debut the following year. Unfortunately, a car accident sidelined Louris for a period, forcing him to leave the band, but he soon returned, and after spending a few years putting together demos in hopes of securing a major-label record deal, the Jayhawks used some of the material to create their sophomore effort, 1989’s Blue Earth. By ’92, the band had been signed to Def American and begun to earn mainstream notice for their gorgeous harmonies, releasing the Hollywood Town Hall album and finding some airplay with its single, “Waiting for the Sun,” and 1995’s Tomorrow the Green Grass did even better, thanks to the song “Blue.”